Crash and Burn
by gossamerthoughts
Summary: To move on with your life, you have to first deal with your past. bam, samka.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Obviously I do not own NBC, ER or any of its characters, nor do I have rights to the lyrics of _Crash and Burn_ by Savage Garden, the song from which I chose my title.

Okay, so this is my first ever posted story on Though I'd love to hear feedback so I could improve upon my writing, I would like to add that any unnecessarily vicious comments should be kept to oneself. Read and enjoy. Love always, gossamerthoughts xx

-x-

_"Let me be the one you call/if you jump, I will break your fall/Lift you up and fly away with you into the night/If you need to fall apart/I can mend a broken heart/if you need to crash/then crash and burn, you're not alone"_

-x-

It wasn't the room that bothered me; it had the same sterile feel of waiting rooms anywhere. Even though no one was coughing or making other sickly bodily noises, I felt that something unwanted would be clinging to me upon my departure. Even under the unnaturally bright fluorescent lighting, there was an unspoken darkness to the room. The uncomfortable silence remained unbroken except by the sound of magazines being absently thumbed through, and by the woman in the seat next to mine, chattering incessantly into my ear. She had obviously deluded herself into thinking that I was interested in anything that she had to say.

"You would think that my husband would be happy to find out he'll be having a kid. Spreadin' his seed and all that, right? But 'No way,' he says to me the moment I break it to him. 'I'm not having some baby pissing and shitting all over my house.' He forked over the cash like that," she snapped her fingers in my face and shook her head in disgust.

"What's your story?" she said, finally offering the conversation to me. I watched as a new expression crossed her face, and I realized that she was looking at me for the first time.

"You look really young. How old are you anyway?"

Without answering, I tried to subtly and slowly edge away from her, moving nearly imperceptibly closer to the door. I really didn't want to admit to myself that I might actually belong in this room. If I could fade into the falsely cheerful floral wallpaper, I would have in a heartbeat. I considered responding to the stranger obliviously telling nonsense stories to my turned-away face, but even that didn't seem to be a viable option.

Eventually, inevitably, my deception would be painfully revealed.

Instead, I stared down at my shoes and tried to think of more innocent times, when words like 'piss' and 'shit' had not been part of my vocabulary. I tried to pretend that the other people in the room were not all here for the same reason, anxiously awaiting the same fate.

"Samantha Taggart?"

I felt my insides turn to ash at the sound of my name. Involuntarily, I wrapped my arms around my stomach and hugged myself protectively.

"Samantha Taggart?"

I kept my eyes on the floor, my breath catching in my chest. I didn't dare myself to move. No one would know that it was my name being called. As long as I remained faceless, this was a game that I could still win. I just had to wait it out.

"Molly Stevens?"

Molly stood up and walked down the dull-carpeted corridor, accepting the fate that I had been too afraid to claim as my own. I left the waiting room without another thought.

The dread only came to me once I stepped outside of the building itself. Could I turn back and try to get in for my missed appointment? I really didn't want to make a fool out myself in front of the entire room. I could lie and say that I had gone through with it, but it would only be so long before it my lie would stretch itself thin, and it would be horribly obvious to even the most naïve.

Besides, the odds were already against me; my mom and grandma were living proof that poor judgment and attraction to men who easily made up the population of living scum of the earth was in my blood. I just didn't want to face them with the fact that I had lived up entirely to their expectations: I was fifteen, pregnant, and pissed off with the world for stacking another obstacle in my path—as if I didn't already have a crap life to deal with everyday.

-x-

_Sam pulled back from Ben's kiss, amazed at him. He had just heard my grandmother's colourful account of my past, and here he was, her kiss still lingering on his lips. _

_He hadn't run away._

_She hadn't thought that she could feel this way about a man since Luka. She had almost been ready to prepare for a life of sleeping alone, as crushing as the thought of cold sheets beside her seemed._

_He's sweet, she smiled sadly to herself, watching as he pulled away from the curb and drove off._

_But is he ready to take on a Taggart?_


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Though the story is my own, I do not own NBC, ER or its characters, etc etc.

Thank you to NaomiP for the review and for motivating me to choose my ship. :) Love always, gossamerthoughts xx

"So, what do you think about Mr. Cappadocia? Such a jerk, right? I mean, who assigns an essay right after summer break?"

I was caught off-guard once I realized that she had been talking to me. I had been staring absently into the bathroom mirror while the girl beside me fixed her hair and makeup. How was it that pregnant women were always advertised as 'glowing' and 'radiant'? Taking in my lank-haired, hollow-eyed reflection, I wondered if I was really pregnant at all, or just carrying some freakish disease.

Or Rosemary's Baby.

"Um…right," I answered belatedly, but the girl seemed to have forgotten already that she had struck up conversation with me.

"So," I tried again, "what topic did you choose?"

"Oh you know," she sighed through her lipgloss. "Michael Jordan? He retired last year, you know, I still can't believe it."

I fought the urge to snort. Of course, someone of her calibre would believe that that had been an event of major importance and greatest impact this century. More like, Michael Jordan was innately beautiful to her, likely staring down at her every day from some glossy poster on her bedroom wall—right beside Joey Lawrence. That, and writing about a sports legend would undoubtedly pique the interest of the guys that she had strategically sat beside in class.

"What about you?"

I shrugged, "Thalidomide."

Her face was vacant, and I didn't have the patience to explain. A wave of nausea had attacked me uninvited, and soon found myself bending over a toilet in the nearest bathroom stall, the taste of acid burning in my throat.

After I felt that the entire contents of my stomach must have been emptied against my will, I wedged myself between the toilet and the wall, and sat down on the cold concrete floor, hugging my knees to my chest.

I heard the sound of the bathroom door opening, and tilted my head slightly and watched another girl join the first at the sinks. I hadn't had the time to close the stall door properly and it sat slightly ajar, leaving me with a slivered view of them from behind and of their reflected faces in the mirror.

I watched as the girl I had been speaking to—Ray-Anne, I think that's what her name was—flipped her hair in the direction of my stall and pantomimed sticking a finger down her throat.

The other girl grimaced.

"Who?" she squeaked, too loudly, for Ray-Anne shushed her.

Though I couldn't hear her, I could see in her reflection her mouth forming my name.

"Ugh," the second girl answered, her voice quieter now but still barely managing her whisper. "No wonder she's so skinny. I mean…gross."

"I know, right?" Ray-Anne replied, raising her voice back to conversational tones.

"Are you okay in there, Sam?" she called cheerfully over her shoulder.

I pulled myself back up to my feet and pushed my hair behind my ears.

_Great, _I thought bitterly to myself. _Now on top of everything else, I'm going to have to deal with people who think I'm Bulimia Girl._

"Fine," I told her. Whether I despised her or not, I needed the illusion that I blended into her world just as seamlessly as everyone else did.

-x-

_As Sam carried the groceries up the steps, she couldn't help reflecting upon what Gracie had told her earlier. Should she really be distancing herself from Ben, when he was so obviously the nicest guy to come her way in a long while?_

_Why are you making this so much harder than this is? She told herself, as she carefully balanced the brown paper bag on her hip and reached for her keys in her coat pocket._

_God, let yourself be happy for once, why don't you? People will start to wonder if you enjoy torturing yourself like this._

_She pushed the door open and pulled the keys out of the lock._

"_Well, speak of the devil!"_

_She tried to smile at Gracie's remark, but the sight of Ben sitting at her kitchen table sent her reeling. She could only wonder why he was there, and what kind of stories her grandmother had fed him. She only hoped that she didn't look as shocked as she felt._

_You're so not ready for this, she thought to herself, but as she set the groceries down, she forced herself to think differently._

_Just go for it, Sam. What relationship has never had any sense of risk involved, anyway?_


End file.
